


Of Home and Attention

by Staubengel



Category: Tintenwelt-Trilogie | Inkheart Trilogy - Cornelia Funke
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 14:25:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11991690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Staubengel/pseuds/Staubengel
Summary: My wonderful friend and beta-reader Riah asked me to read her a sentence in German to check if I could make it so it would NOT sound angry. I offered to read her a sentence from Inkheart, because I own both the German and the English version of it. But I was not prepared for only the wirst sentences sucking me in again like this and not letting me go anymore, so I started reading her the entire book instead (in English, not in German, though). And... well. I had always loved Dustfinger and I came to love Basta with my first reread, and those two have the most INTENSE relationship I have ever seen between two characters, and so of COURSE Riah and I ended up shipping them, and HARD. There is only one other fic of them on AO3 here, so I had to take matters into my own hands (especially after Riah kept on screaming at me for it ;D) and after she betad it for me so beautifully, I can now upload the second fic of those two here on AO3! It is only a short one, but better than nothing, and who knows, maybe I'll write more of them in the future? Anyway, here you go, my dear Riah (and all the other people who enjoy this pairing). Have some Stabbyburny in your eyeballs, as you would call it, and thank you for everything that you are :DEDIT: I worked over the fic a little, now it is better and also fits the canon description of Basta's bedroom.





	Of Home and Attention

**Author's Note:**

> My wonderful friend and beta-reader Riah asked me to read her a sentence in German to check if I could make it so it would NOT sound angry. I offered to read her a sentence from Inkheart, because I own both the German and the English version of it. But I was not prepared for only the wirst sentences sucking me in again like this and not letting me go anymore, so I started reading her the entire book instead (in English, not in German, though). And... well. I had always loved Dustfinger and I came to love Basta with my first reread, and those two have the most INTENSE relationship I have ever seen between two characters, and so of COURSE Riah and I ended up shipping them, and HARD. There is only one other fic of them on AO3 here, so I had to take matters into my own hands (especially after Riah kept on screaming at me for it ;D) and after she betad it for me so beautifully, I can now upload the second fic of those two here on AO3! It is only a short one, but better than nothing, and who knows, maybe I'll write more of them in the future? Anyway, here you go, my dear Riah (and all the other people who enjoy this pairing). Have some Stabbyburny in your eyeballs, as you would call it, and thank you for everything that you are :D
> 
> EDIT: I worked over the fic a little, now it is better and also fits the canon description of Basta's bedroom.

It was the middle of the night when Dustfinger entered the little house in Capricorn's village. It was familiar to him by now, he had been here many and many times before. There was a narrow hallway that split the house in two, an empty living room and a kitchen on the right, and a bedroom and a bathroom on the left side of the building.

It only took him one step to arrive at the doorway that led to the bedchamber. There was no door in the hinges, it was just an open passage, and the room behind it was just large enough to hold a bed and a drawer at the wall to the right, as well as a little nightstand on the left side of the bed. A small window cutout without a glass in it gaped in the wall to the left and a cool breeze came in, making it comfortably chilly in here. 

Dustfinger stopped in the doorway and looked at the person lying on the bed.

Basta always ended up sleeping on his right side somehow. Dustfinger didn't know how he did it, but it was a given that he would wake up like this in the morning. Dustfinger often watched him sleep, because he himself liked to be awake in the night, whereas Basta tried to organise his sleeping schedule so that he could always be there at Capricorn's service whenever his master demanded it of him. So the sight of the young man being wrapped inside his thin covers, knife under his pillow and amulet hanging around his slim neck, was as familiar to Dustfinger as any sight could be. It was like home; a twisted, toxic, unhealthy kind of home, but still the only bit of home Dustfinger had left. Yes, Basta was like home, and admitting that to himself always made his heart sting hotly in his chest.

Sighing soundlessly, he peeled his boots off his tired feet and put them down beside the doorway before he laid his coat and his rucksack right next to them as well and made his way over to the double bed. He dropped his shirt and his pants on the floor as he went, until he only wore his underwear, and then carefully slipped down beside Basta on the mattress.

“You know that I hate it when you wake me up like that, fire-eater,” Basta growled and wrapped himself more tightly into his blanket. “Couldn't you have waited until the morning before you decided to crawl back to me like one of my stupid dogs?”

“You're easier to bear when it's dark,” Dustfinger answered and tried to slip his feet underneath the covers before they turned cold in the fresh night air.

Basta only grunted and didn't move an inch to make space for Dustfinger under the blanket. He was a stubborn tease like that, and it was his way of showing he was angry at his lover for having been away for over a week again. Or maybe 'lover' wasn't the right term for what Dustfinger was to Basta. They had a very complicated relationship with each other.

Dustfinger remained sitting and leaned his back against the headpiece of the bed. The moon shone brightly tonight and cast the room in its silvery light, painting a stark relief on the burn-marks on Basta's bare arm. Dustfinger always caught up on his burn-marks, because it was such an ironic thing that Basta would have them. Dustfinger loved to play with the fire, but it had burned Basta's arms, and Basta loved to play with his knife and had cut Dustfinger's scars into his face with it. Dustfinger had not burned Basta himself, but it still felt like his friend, the fire, had gotten revenge on Basta for him, and so they both were marked with what the other liked best, and what they themselves still hated the most about their partner.

Suddenly, Basta grunted again and turned around to face Dustfinger.

“What I hate even more than your talking,” he stated, rubbing the sleep out of his right eye with his hand, “is you lurking silently somewhere behind my back. It feels like being hunted by a nasty spell.”

“Trust me, I know what being hunted feels like, and it doesn't even come close to this,” Dustfinger murmured. He reached out and grabbed the cord around Basta's tanned neck, from which the tiny bag with the rabbit foot dangled. “Besides,” he added, running his thumb over the fabric of the bag, “you're protected from bad spells with this, aren't you? And it's not like I know witchcraft, anyway.”

“No, you know other ways to distress me,” Basta grumbled. He grabbed the wrist of Dustfinger's hand that was still holding his amulet to prevent him from playing with it any further and propped up on his elbow to be a little more on eye-level with him, even though Dustfinger still had to look down to meet these dark blue eyes of his partner. They always fascinated him, because the blue lay so far back in his eyes that light and shadows seemed to change their colour in every single situation, like a marble made of translucent glass but with a dark blue core in the middle.

“Are you coming down here yourself or do I have to make you?” Basta asked him, growling, obviously disturbed by how deeply Dustfinger looked into his eyes. Basta was bad at intimacy; they both were, even though they both craved it so deeply. Basta needed attention and Dustfinger needed a home, but receiving tenderness or affection was something that actually scared them both, and so their relationship was all just taking what they needed for themselves and clutching to each other to get it from their lover.

Just to tease him, Dustfinger did _not_ come down to Basta, and so the other man reached up with another low growl to grab him by the hair and yank him down into a claiming, hard kiss. Immediately, the strong and fresh taste of mint flooded Dustfinger's mouth and he greedily jumped at it and sucked Basta's tongue straight against his own. There was no other taste, no other smell in this world that reminded him more of Basta, and by now, whenever peppermint came to his senses, he inevitably thought of his partner.

Basta was a harsh kisser – they both were, probably – and his teeth dug deep into Dustfinger's lip. He slung his second arm around Dustfinger's rib cage and pulled him down while he himself sat up, rolling them over in a mess of limbs and fabric, until they were a tangled formation with Basta on top, who angrily yanked at the blanket to move it out from between their bodies. He still wore his underwear underneath it, just as Dustfinger still wore his own, but they both knew how to work their shorts down, even though it was all but graceful in their shared and impatient heat.

Basta's mouth now was everywhere on Dustfinger's face, on his cheek and his chin, on his neck and his shoulder; wherever Basta could reach while they were desperately trying to get themselves naked. Every time his teeth scraped over Dustfinger's skin, every time his lips ghosted over his flesh, Dustfinger shuddered and once even groaned as Basta bit down on a sensitive spot at the intersection of his neck and his shoulder.

Then Basta already was between his legs and Dustfinger had to close his thighs around his thin waist heavily to hold him still where he was, before he could move any further.

This was not their first time, and Dustfinger  _ knew  _ how impatient and ruthless Basta could be. He had been hurt by him quite a few times in the past and he knew he had to take care himself to not let that happen again in the future. So he quickly let his fingers roam through the nightstand drawer by the side of the bed until he had found what he was searching for and shoved the small bottle into Basta's left hand.

Basta grunted with irritation, but accepted the bottle and batted at Dustfinger's knee to tell him to move his leg away so he could prop himself up a little. He had used to take spit for this, but it hadn't always sufficed, and Dustfinger was done hurting because of Basta's impatience.

The lube was cold when he dripped it on him, but he'd rather take that then being painfully torn. Before he could even close the lid of the bottle Basta had handed back to him and stow it away in the nightstand drawer properly, where it belonged, Basta already pressed inside of his body, and Dustfinger dropped the bottle with an agonised groan.

“You're too hasty,” he muttered as he willed himself to relax, his fingers digging hard into the flesh of Basta's shoulder.

“Stop whining and ease up, or you're just going to complain again in the morning,” Basta grumbled as he forced himself deeper, his peppermint breath ghosting over Dustfinger's cheek. The lube made him glide inside easier, but it still left a slight burning pain that Dustfinger had to effectively breathe through.

“Next time, you can be on the bottom,” he suggested and brought his second hand up to hold on to Basta's lower back, but instead of replying, Basta just growled and pressed his left hand down on Dustfinger's mouth.

“Just shut up already, will you?” he whispered before he leaned his face against the side of Dustfinger's head and sank in the last few centimeters with a deep, satisfied sigh.

What followed was a frenzy of movements, of grinding and arching and rolling and sliding, of Basta biting his neck and moaning into Dustfinger's ear, and of Dustfinger scratching his back and squeezing Basta between his embracing four limbs. They knew each other very well and knew how to get what they wanted, and in the end it was a satisfying taking on both of their sides.

When Basta had rolled off him and the fresh breeze cooled Dustfinger's sweat, Basta's hot release still lingering inside of him and his teeth marks still itching on Dustfinger's skin, the height of his orgasm actually kept Dustfinger feeling happy for a few moments longer. He closed his eyes and reveled in this feeling, this feeling that he felt far too rarely nowadays, this warm, fuzzy realm of contentment that made his heart lighten for a couple of seconds before the heaviness of the world settled down on him again.

Beside him, Basta already lay on his right side again, arranging himself under the blanket that he’d had to retrieve from the floor right next to the bed. He was nice enough to offer Dustfinger a corner of it by carelessly throwing it over his body, before he threw his left arm over his stomach as well in a possessive and threatening manner. He would not allow his lover to slip away again tonight. Not that Dustfinger had wanted to, but the gesture still almost provoked him to try it. Instead, he decided to accept it as a pleading to stay, of a reassurance that his home would always be here for him and welcome him back whenever he came for it.

Breathing in the intimate scent of peppermint and both their sweat, Dustfinger allowed himself to drift off into sleep, being held down by the weight of Basta's warm arm. When he woke up, he would resent being in this village once more, letting Basta tease him and Capricorn scorn him. But it would be eased by the feeling of being familiar, of being a part of this and belonging to them somehow. Especially in his time alone with Basta, when it almost felt like he was really actually home again.

Smiling softly, Dustfinger listened to the other man's breathing until darkness engulfed him completely and he dreamed of dwarves and of trolls and of fairies with delicate, beautiful wings and their chatter. 

 

 

* * *

 

Here's what I imagine Basta's eyes to look like, changing from blue to black with the light:


End file.
